Millionaire industrialist Steven Taylor (MICHAEL DOUGLAS) is a man who has everything but what he craves most - the love and fidelity of his wife. A hugely successful entity in the high-stakes New York financial world, Taylor considers Emily Bradford Taylor (GWYNETH PALTROW) his most treasured acquisition. However, beneath Taylor's controlled veneer, he loves his wife, even needs her -- though he could never tell her just how much.

But Emily wants--and needs--more than just her role as a dazzling accessory in her husband's world. Brilliant and sophisticated, Emily, who works as a multi-lingual translator and aide to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, has been involved with David Shaw (VIGGO MORTENSEN), a talented but struggling downtown artist who provides the emotional fulfillment for Emily that Steven cannot muster.

For months, Emily and David's affair, carried out in secret, passionate trysts in his Brooklyn loft, has been leading to what David hopes will be the demise of Emily's marriage and the beginning of their new life together.

It's only a matter of time before Steven Taylor learns the truth behind his wife's increasingly distant behavior toward him. And when he does, the knowledge sets in motion a scheme as complex as a lethal board game. The goal? That most impossible and terrible of aspirations - a perfect murder - with Emily as the target. Jealousy may be one motive. Her considerable trust fund may be another.

But in the final scheme of things, a perfect murder may be as impossible to achieve as a perfect love... and once foul play is in the air, the cat-and-mouse game that ensues reveals the sharpened claws of some unexpected predators.